About Us

A quirky Museum that you must visit today

Talk: Establishing a Sustainable Brand: Insights from Sisters in Sustainability

The Museum of Brands

Located on 111-117 Lancaster Road, 2 minutes from Portobello Road, we show 150 years of brands, packaging and advertising through the permanent exhibition the ‘Time Tunnel’ created by consumer historian Robert Opie.

The Museum presents temporary exhibitions, talks, webinars and workshops, to create and debate ideas and examine the role of brands in history and the modern world. The Museum has a subtropical garden, and a Museum gift shop for visitors to enjoy. We host more than 200 events and conferences per year for brands such as Unilever, Facebook, Tesco and more.

Our learning programme for schools and universities attracts more than 20,000 students a year.

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General Objective

The objectives of the charity are to educate the public on design and in particular on the subjects of advertising and packaging and their history by establishing and maintaining a museum to be open to the public for displaying exhibitions.

Purposes

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To advance education in the subject areas relevant to the Museum

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To increase access to learning experiences for wider audiences

To maintain and preserve the heritage represented by this Museum

Main Objectives

advance the enjoyment and understanding of commercial art, design, social and consumer history to as wide an audience as possible.
Enhance the breadth of understanding of the Museum through integration with creative industries
Preserve objects and specialist knowledge for future generations to experience
Offer high quality learning experiences to a range of existing and new audiences
Develop community ties through learning and volunteering programmes
Increase opportunities to access the collection through raised awareness

Our History

The Museum’s current site in Lancaster Road, Notting Hill represents the third phase in the Museum’s evolution.

More than fifty years ago consumer historian Robert Opie began to unravel the fascinating story of how consumer products and promotion had evolved since Victorian times. By 1975 Robert had enough material to hold his own exhibition, The Pack Age, at the Victoria & Albert Museum. In 1984 he opened the first museum devoted to the history of packaging and advertising in Gloucester.

In the early 2000s, the collection needed a new home. With the help of global brand agency pi Global and founding sponsors Cadbury, Twinings, Vodafone, Diageo, Kellogg’s and McVities, the Museum became a charity in 2002 and opened in Notting Hill, London.

After ten successful years, the Museum had outgrown its building and in 2015 relocated to a larger site nearby, just around the corner from the world-famous Portobello Road Market.

The relocation project added new galleries, added new galleries, event spaces and garden. Support for the project has come from founders including Diageo, DS Smith, the Garfield Weston Foundation and the John Lyon’s Charity.

The Museum's Timeline

  • 1963First item in collection is acquired

    A packet of Munchies from a vending machine in Inverness

  • 1975The first exhibition

    First exhibition, The Pack Age: A Century of Wrapping It Up opens at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

  • 1984Our first home

    The Museum of Packaging and Advertising is open to the public in Gloucester.

  • 1999Time to move

    Opie’s Museum of Memories opens on Wigan Pier.

  • 2002Registered Charity

    The Museum becomes a registered charity (No 1093538).

  • 2005Arriving In London

    The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising opens in London with the help of pi Global.

  • 2015A new adventure in Notting Hill

    The Museum relocates to larger premises at 111-117 Lancaster Road, W11 1QT.